Dark Tiger (19 page)

“What do you think?” said Calhoun.

“Shit, I don't know. It ain't any of my business. I hardly know Edwin. Run into him at the lumberyard a few times is all. That's where he works. That little girl was a wild one, though. Everybody knows that. What's a daddy to do, huh?”

“You saying her father abused her?”

“Abused?” The guy shrugged. “I don't know about abused. He probably took his belt to her a few times. Ask me, she had it coming.”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “it's an interesting case, all right.” This man hadn't indicated that he knew that McNulty and Millie had not died of gunshot wounds. Calhoun guessed it wasn't up to him to set him straight.

Tiny had returned with a knife and a fork rolled in a napkin. He put them on the bartop in front of Calhoun. “Ayup,” Tiny said. “Interesting. Them two were in here for lunch the day they got killed. Cops come in, asked me some questions.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like what time they got here, what time they left, what'd they have to say when they were here, did they talk to anybody else. I answered 'em as best as I could.”

“Did they ask what the two of them had to eat?”

Tiny frowned at Calhoun. “Huh? Eat? What makes the difference, what they had to eat?”

Calhoun shrugged. “I was just wondering.”

“The cops didn't ask that question, no.” Tiny shrugged. “The guy, he had a cheeseburger, like what you ordered except no onion. Fries and a beer. The little gal with him . . .” Tiny looked up at the ceiling for a minute. “Hm. I seem to remember she asked for a BLT. On white toast. Bag of chips and, um, an iced tea. She being too young to drink alcohol.”

“That's a good memory,” said Calhoun. He was thinking that it was unlikely that McNulty and Millie Gautier had contracted botulism here at Tiny's, because they had eaten entirely different things.

“Tiny's famous for his memory,” said the guy on the bar stool. “You notice he didn't need to write down your order? He remembers everything. Anyone who ever come in here, he'll remember the face and the name, too.”

“You're Stoney Calhoun,” said Tiny. “You come back in a couple years, I'll remember, all right. And I'll bring you coffee and ask if you want a medium cheeseburger with onion and fries.”

“That's impressive,” Calhoun said. “So you're the one who served those two that day, then.”

Tiny rolled his eyes. “I'm the one who serves everybody all the time in this place.”

“Do you remember overhearing anything they said to each other while they were sitting here having lunch?”

“The cops asked me that.”

“What did you tell them?”

Tiny cocked his head and peered at Calhoun. “Why you asking all these questions about them two?”

“Like I said,” Calhoun said, “I think it's an unusual case.” He shrugged. “I find things like that interesting, that's all. Plus, well, the man who was arrested for the murder at Loon Lake is a friend of mine. I can't help thinking the two cases are connected.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tiny. “It is interesting, and I see what you mean about them being connected. Your lodge, there, being the connection.” He hesitated. “Those two were having themselves a quiet little argument when they were here. Didn't raise their voices or curse or start throwing things. Nothing like that. A polite disagreement, I guess you'd call it. That's what I told the cops.”

“Did you catch what they were arguing about?” Calhoun said.

“Not much,” Tiny said. “The man, it seemed he was going somewhere, and the gal—she was just a kid, a teenager—she wanted to go with him, and he kept saying no, she couldn't. She kept at him, and he just kept shaking his head. When they walked out of here, they were still going at it.” He shrugged. “That's all. The man, he hardly said anything. Just, ‘No, that won't work, honey. Now leave it be, okay?' Like that. But she did keep at him.” He grinned. “Women, huh?”

Calhoun thought of Kate. He smiled and nodded. “Ayuh. Women.”

Tiny said, “Lemme get your burger for you.” He turned and walked away and was back a minute later with Calhoun's lunch. “More coffee?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Calhoun watched the tennis match while he ate. Tiny's burger was thin and greasy and overcooked, and the fries were limp, but he was hungry, and ketchup made it more than acceptable, and the coffee was pretty good. He saved a hunk of burger for Ralph.

When he was done, he put a twenty-dollar bill on the bartop. Tiny came over and took the bill, and a minute later he slapped down some change.

Calhoun left a five for a tip. “Thanks,” he said to Tiny. “That burger hit the spot.”

“You come back in the evening, Stoney,” said Tiny. “We got some pretty gals dancin' here. We bring 'em all the way down from Montreal.”

“Sounds good,” said Calhoun. He slipped off his stool and walked out of the café.

When he got outside, he had to blink a few times against the brightness of the early afternoon sunshine. Then he headed over to the Range Rover. When he got in, Ralph, who was curled up on the backseat, ignored him. He slipped the dog the hunk of Tiny's burger. Ralph gobbled it down as if it had been cooked perfectly, then licked the side of Calhoun's face. With dogs, it was, indeed, all about food.

 

 

 

 

Less than a mile down the road heading back toward St. Cecelia, Calhoun came to the sawmill where the guy sitting at the bar in Tiny's had told him that Edwin Gautier, Millie Gautier's father, worked.

He parked in the sandy lot beside a small shingled building with the word
OFFICE
over the door. He told Ralph he'd have to stay in the car and got the expected scowl from the dog. When he slid out of the Range Rover, he saw that there was a steel building the size and shape of an airplane hangar at the foot of the slope out back. Huge piles of pine logs with their limbs lopped off but their bark still on were stacked in a big open area. The smell of fresh-cut sawdust that hung over the place was strong and pleasant.

He went into the office. A bulky middle-aged woman was sitting behind a messy steel desk peering at a computer monitor. She wore big round glasses and a man's oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms. The walls were all covered with cheap pine paneling. Sitting against the walls were a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs and several file
cabinets. A doorway behind the woman's desk led into another part of the building.

She glanced up at Calhoun. “Hang on a sec,” she said and returned her attention to her computer. She hit a couple of keys, shook her head, typed in something else, then nodded and sat back. She looked up at Calhoun. “Okay. What can I do for you?”

Calhoun took the leather folder that held his deputy badge out of his pocket, opened it, and showed it to her. “I need to speak with Edwin Gautier.”

She glanced at the badge, then frowned at Calhoun. “You're new around here, ain't you?”

“I'm not from around here,” he said. “I have an interest in Mr. Gautier's daughter's death.”

“Well, you ain't the only one. Poor ol' Edwin's been questioned a bunch of times already.”

“I need to do it one more time,” said Calhoun. “Can you tell me how to find him? I understand he works here.”

“I'll have to git him for you,” she said. “You can't go out in the yard. Insurance, you know.”

“That's fine,” said Calhoun. “Thank you.”

The woman picked up a phone, hit a couple of buttons, gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then said, “Chester? Listen, send Edwin up here to the office, would you? Somebody here needs to talk to him.” She chuckled, glanced at Calhoun, then said, “Yeah, yeah. I know. Okay, thanks.” She hung up the phone. “He'll be right along,” she said to Calhoun, “soon as he dumps his load. Edwin drives the forklift. You might as well meet him out front, talk to him there.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” said Calhoun.

He went outside and sat on the steps, and about ten minutes later a man came around the corner of the building. He was
wearing a green shirt and matching pants, with work boots and a yellow hard hat. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. When he saw Calhoun sitting on the steps of the office building, he stopped, dropped the butt on the ground, and stomped on it. Then he took off his hard hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “You lookin' for me?” he said.

“Are you Edwin Gautier?”

Gautier nodded cautiously. He was a small man, wiry and compact, late thirties, early forties, Calhoun guessed. His pale, stringy hair was thin on top and hung to his collar on the sides.

Calhoun fished out his deputy badge and showed it to the man.

Gautier shrugged. “Why don't you guys just figure out what happened to Millie and leave me alone? I told you everything I know.”

“I apologize for putting you through this all over again,” Calhoun said, “but it's a peculiar case, and we're not making much headway with it. So I got to ask you some questions you might've already answered.”

“What if I don't feel like talking about it anymore?”

Calhoun shrugged. “I guess we can drag you down to the police station and hold on to you till you do feel like talking about it.”

“You threatening me?”

“Nope. Just answering your question. Clarifying your options.”

Gautier sighed. “So what do you want to know?”

Calhoun patted the step beside him. “Why don't you sit down.”

Gautier shrugged and sat.

“So tell me about Millie,” said Calhoun.

“What about her?”

“Well, for starters, what was she doing hanging out with a man old enough to be her father?”

“How'm I supposed to know?” said Gautier.

“She was your daughter.”

“Look,” he said. “I done my best with Millie, and I know that wasn't good enough. Her mother run away when Millie was seven. She was a willful child, just like her old lady, and she grew into a willful girl. I tried to discipline her, but it didn't do no good. She just did what she wanted, and lately that included hanging around grown-up men. Her big dream was to find some guy who'd take her out of St. Cecelia. She knowed it wouldn't be me.”

“That must have been difficult for you.”

Gautier shrugged. “From the time she was about thirteen, she was a wild one. She had a reputation, Millie did.”

Calhoun said nothing.

“When some of the guys you work with, have a beer with, they've, um, been with your daughter?” Gautier shook his head. “Downright embarrassing.”

“I guess I would've given her a good whipping if she was mine,” said Calhoun.

“Oh, I done that. Yes I did. It wasn't that I didn't care. I did. That's why I whupped her. I never gave up on Millie. I tried to show her the error of her ways. Smacked her bare little butt with my belt more than once. Little devil, she'd just laugh at me. ‘Hit me harder, Eddie,' she'd say. Bitchly child always refused to call me Daddy.”

Again, for the ten-thousandth time, Calhoun wondered if, in his previous, unremembered life, his life before a lightning
bolt obliterated his memory, he'd had children, and if he did, whether he'd beaten them.

He doubted it. It took a certain kind of man to beat a child, and Calhoun didn't see how he could ever have been such a man.

Edwin Gautier was such a man, and Calhoun had to stifle an urge to punch the ignorant man in the face.

It was no wonder that Millie wanted to get away from St. Cecelia.

“What can you tell me about McNulty?” Calhoun said. “The man Millie was found with.”

“I never met the man, myself,” said Gautier.

Calhoun said nothing.

After a minute, Gautier shrugged. “I heard some things.”

Calhoun nodded encouragingly.

“Millie thought this McNulty was gonna take her away from here. He was her ticket. He was a rich guy, staying at that fancy fishing lodge up to Loon Lake. Millie would've done anything for him. The night before she . . . she died—she didn't come home. She was with him.”

“With McNulty.”

Gautier nodded. “Yes, sir.

“How do you know?”

“She come home in the morning to change her clothes, and we had a conversation. I asked her where she'd been at, and she said it was none of my business, as usual. Then she told me she was leaving for good and I better not try to stop her, she'd found herself a nice rich man who was gonna take care of her.”

“Did she say where they were going?”

“She said this man—it was McNulty, I guess, though she didn't mention any name that I recall—he had business in
Augusta, and then maybe they'd go to Florida. Millie was always talking about Florida. I suppose she might've made that part up. About going to Florida. To make me jealous or something, as if everybody dreamed about going to Florida the way she did.”

“Did she say what the man's business was in Augusta?”

Gautier shook his head. “She was just trying to make him sound important, I suppose.”

“So she said they were leaving that day?”

“Yes. The day she died.”

“You saw her that morning?”

Gautier nodded.

“And she was okay?”

“Okay? What do you mean?”

“Healthy. Not sick.”

“Oh, she was healthy, all right. Rarin' to go, she was.”

“Did she seem afraid?”

Gautier frowned. “How so?”

“Worried? Nervous that something bad might happen?”

“Not that I noticed. Anyway, Millie wasn't like that. Nothing fazed her.”

“It was later that day that they found her?”

“That night,” Gautier said. “In the woods south of town. In his vehicle.”